Buyer's remorse on the Weldon story? Maybe...

Had a bad night last night. Couldn't stop thinking about Republican House member Curt Weldon's revelations -- or should I say claims? -- that a secret DIA team named ABLE DANGER had identified Mohammed Atta a full year before the attacks, only to have their work shut down by mysterious higher-ups at DIA.

Is the story true?

Granted, Weldon's claims have been carried by the New York Times, the Washington Post, and a host of other mainstream sources. Given the sorry state of our media organs, I'm not sure whether so much mainstream attention is a positive indicator. Today's journalists have a talent for looking in the wrong direction.

If the credibility of this piece depends on Curt Weldon -- well, we have reasons to squirm.

He attended the Reverend Moon's "crowning" in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, and later lied about his presence there. Perhaps more importantly, he wrote a book designed to help foment the planned war against Iran. My readers will know what I think about that.

That book derives from the alleged insider revelations of one Fereidon Mahdavi, a notoriously unreliable disciple of Iran-contragator Manucher Ghorbanifar, himself an associate of the infamous Michael Ledeen. The CIA knocked down Mahdavi's claims.

The CIA thus became a Weldon enemy. Which may explain his friendliness to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The Moon tale and the Mahdavi escapade prove that Weldon -- to put the matter in the most charitable light -- possesses eyes, over which wool may be pulled.

Laura Rozen offers this noteworthy observation:

One strange thing about this claim by Congressman Curt Weldon that he has defense intelligence sources who a year before 9/11 identified Mohammad Atta as a member of a Brooklyn al Qaeda cell is that, by some accident of fate, I was at a talk Weldon gave at the Heritage foundation back in 2002, where he was making the same claim and showing the same chart of the al Qaeda cells... I even went up afterwards and asked if it would be possible to get a copy of the chart that accompanied his talk and that he's been showing recently, but it proved elusive. So why is this coming forward in a more prominent way only now? After all, the 911 commission had more than a year of hearings when it could have investigated these claims, and the commission's report has been out for more than a year now. I don't know the answer. But it's worth noting that The Hill reports today that Weldon hopes to use the August recess to secure the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Actually, this was the very point I had hoped to establish with Weldon's staff. Just when did the congressman learn about ABLE DANGER?

News accounts imply that he was clued in quite recently, but certain inconsistent details -- such as the tale told by Rozen, above -- indicate that Weldon has sat on this story for a while, for reasons best known to himself.

Personally, I wouldn't read very much into Weldon's possible ambition to head the Homeland Security Committee, because I doubt that the ABLE DANGER story will help the man's career. The way to get ahead in Republican Washington is not to claim that the Bush administration should have known about Atta and the boys from the beginning.

Ultimately, the credibility of the current story rests not on Weldon but on his DIA source. Journalists have met with this source, who, I presume, was able to prove his actual employment by that agency. Members of the independent 9/11 Commission have found this man's information sufficiently intriguing to request further details.

They were also able to confirm that an operation named ABLE DANGER did, in fact, exist, although we now have conflicting reports as to whether they were told of the identification of the terrorists.

All in all, I still think we should, at this point, classify the story as "unverified, but likely."

But but but.

The right-wing spin-machine has quickly attempted to turn Weldon's account into an excuse for Clinton-bashing, as is demonstrated by this egregious NewsMax piece.

Note that, until recently, Weldon blamed DIA lawyers for not sharing the information with the FBI; allegedly, the lawyers speciously argued that green card holders had the same rights as citizens. Weldon also said that memories of Waco might have rendered the FBI reticent to act against the cell, even though Waco was a BATF operation. Now look at what Weldon is saying...

But the critical information was not acted on, at least in part, because of prohibitions against intelligence sharing implemented by former Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who was reportedly installed in her post at the insistence of then-first lady Hillary Clinton.

The story has changed. First, we had a very Shakespearian "blame the lawyers" riff. Now it's "Blame Hillary!" (See also here.)

How can anyone blame Hillary for a decision made within the walls of the DIA building? The suggestion makes little sense. Of course, a certain type of right-winger will find a way to blame Hillary if his dog gets sick.

I find laughable the very idea that the Clinton administration would refrain from a dramatic strike against al Qaeda just before the election. The "wall" to which NewsMax refers seems to have been at its most impregnable during the first eight months of the Bush regime. We know from other sources that, during this time, the CIA's information on the terrorists did not penetrate to other branches of government.

This FOX News piece (hold your nose and check it out) is rather bizarre:

On Wednesday, a source familiar with the Sept. 11 commission -- formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (search) -- told FOX News that aides who still had security clearances had gone back to the National Archives outside Washington, D.C., to review notes on Atta and any information the U.S. government had on him and his terror cell before the Sept. 11 attacks.

The source acknowledged that the aides were looking for a memo about a briefing given to four staff members by defense intelligence officials during an overseas trip to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the fall of 2003.

Staffers apparently did not recall being told of the Able Danger information at that meeting and wanted to double-check their records.

Just yesterday, a commission member was quoted as saying that the commission did learn about ABLE DANGER during that 2003 trip.

A wild thought has begun to nag at me: What if the whole thing is a scam? What if ABLE DANGER is a fictional creation, akin to the fictional Special Ops unit created in Wag the Dog? What if, after the next terror attack, this "data mining" operation comes up with all-too-convenient evidence telling us to blame Iran?

That, I must confess, is an unlikely scenario. Still, we should demand further documentary evidence about this secretive DIA unit.

No matter how NewsMax attempts to spin this one, they won't be able to change the chronology. According to the original account, ABLE DANGER learned of the cell just weeks before the 2000 election. The Bush administration had the entire period between inauguration and 9/11 to do something. They didn't.

That record of inaction means that Weldon's story ultimately must hurt his Republican president. And that's the primary reason why I find the claims so interesting.

I'm no longer convinced. But I am interested.